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Please allow me to share an interesting story; recently I became acquainted with a young woman who is extremely bright, articulate and creative. She had been involved in the Occupy Movement while living near the coast here in North Carolina. During the time that she was an activist local police pulled her over several times for no apparent reason. That is, they didn't give her either a ticket or warning for traffic violations or to hand her a repair order for her vehicle. On at least three of those occasions she had witnesses in her car that observed these abnormal circumstances and can corroborate her claim. Oddly enough, when she stopped demonstrating with the Occupy Movement the random stops by the police also ceased. Coincidence?
So what is the real moral to your story...she was easily intimidated?
Do you think power is just turned over because you asked nicely?
One guy was a good friend I went to high school with. Nice, funny, married with 2 kids. Started posting about the vast conspiracy that controlled the world. Started talking about how elves lived on Venus and were in telepathic contact with him about what the human race should do to become free. As he raved more and more his wife and his boss couldn't take it any more, so she took the kids and moved about a thousand miles away after he was fired. He still contacts me on occasion about some super important thing the elves told him about me, and if I just pay his rent this month he will be relaxed enough to convey the message.
My wife had an ex from a ways back who was sure of the conspiracy just about to take everything over and turn the US into a vast police state. We parted ways for a bit, and when he got back into contact...he thought water droplets were intelligent beings and he was the next savior to lead us from tyranny with their help. He, of course, was looking for funding to start the movement. He is now in a locked psych ward somewhere in the Southwest.
Another guy was the maintenance man at our college apartment. One day he decided the government was just about to take over, quit his job and took his wife and kid into the Oregon mountains to wait it out. She got fed up with it after a few months and left him. He came back briefly to ask us to join him, or at least help to get a new truck.
Another woman who was a neighbor thought of the vast conspiracy about to take over. She also believed that there was a radio implanted in her head by her dentist that told her the secret plans of the CIA. We found out she killed herself by jumping off a bridge, because the voices got too loud, from her kids cleaning out her condo.
Another girl we met briefly was convinced the conspiracy was about to take over, with a multi-dimensional vampire at it's head that she used to date in a previous life. We heard that and got the hell away from her ASAP.
We saw a man in college, never actually met him, that was convinced there was a vast conspiracy about to happen. He would rave on the street corner across from the college, and ride the commuter buses every once and while. We would see him on the bus shouting at his foot because it had done something wrong to him, and was hindering him. I am pretty sure he was crazy, or a PhD psychology student...but I never found out.
There are many paranoid mentally ill folks around, which there is ample evidence of. This idea of a vast conspiracy by the government about to take over has been around for decades, spouted by those same folks with zero evidence. I think I will believe the option that has evidence and fact on it's side, then the side with a bunch of mentally deranged folks.
So you don't believe that anyone has been intimidated by government, local or otherwise. You think they are all paranoid and mentally deranged ?
Although I don't agree with the occupy movement, I do respect their right to peacefully protest. I will criticize when it becomes less than peaceful also, but to target and harrass someone simply for protesting is dead wrong and very frightening.
Of course occupy has the right to protest, they are on Obama's side. Conservative groups, the IRS made sure they couldn't even form. Harry Reid who has a secret source said they would disappear must have a magic ball.
Lots of fascists on the boards defending Obama, but take a look at the conservatives in politics who are doing the same....
i will defend anyone that deserves a defense. on the other hand i will turn away from those that do things that cant be defended. for instance, i will defend obama for going after al qeada and the taliban, i wont defend him for using the ultra nasty tactics he used to win every election he has run.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stan4
How can it be a police state when the police take 45 minutes to respond to a 911 call?
i do hope you are being sarcastic, if not though then an education is in order. a police state is not about the cops responding to 911 calls, its about the government intruding on your life at all levels, and punishing you for doing or saying things the government doesnt like. its all about government control of your life.
So what is the real moral to your story...she was easily intimidated?
Do you think power is just turned over because you asked nicely?
The exceptionally brave young activist who I made mention of was not by any stretch of the imagination easily intimidated, but sadly the OWS movement on the East Coast of North Carolina fell apart around her. I know much more about this woman's character but I believe it's inappropriate to share it here without her permission. Nonetheless I will tell you that this impressive young lady has guts!
Do I personally believe that power is turned over because I ask nicely? No, I believe in the profound words of the famous statesman and social reformer Frederick Douglass, “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
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